‘Mrs Harwood, you crazy. You go make tings woss.’ Jennifer followed Sabine to the gate as she wheeled the bike out.
‘Please, please doh go.’
Katinka followed them, smiling, tail up.
‘Jennifer. Yes. I’m going to make things very bad indeed for those bastards down there.’
Sabine opened the gate, swinging one leg as if to mount the bike, hearing a loud crack in her knee. Her leg didn’t reach. It was too short all of a sudden. She’d shrunk over fifty years.
‘Jennifer, come and help me.’
‘No.’
‘Jennifer, come on. Do what you’re told.’
‘Oh gorsh, you go kill yuhself on dat ting.’
‘Come on, help me on.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘Oh gorsh, man.’
Jennifer came forward reluctantly, heaving and pushing, and in a moment Sabine was upright on the bike, her toes barely touching the ground. She glanced at Jennifer as if to say, How do I look? and then she was out, on Saddle Road, the main road into town, into Winderflet, cycling full pelt. The wind was in her hair and all the workmen on the vulgar condominiums opposite were looking down and heckling her and laughing and people in cars passing were watching her like she was mad. An old white woman on a green bicycle riding down the road, like she was in France or Italy or somewhere. A seventy-five-year-old white woman, mad as hell and riding down to the police station in Winderflet. Four herons perched on the bridge railings stared at her. The man at the fruit store on the bend in the river stared. The woman selling Caterpillar boots on the oil drums on the verge of the road stared. At the People’s Place parlour a whole block-lime of men with their feet cocked up against the wall stared and smirked. She knew they recognised her. Mr Harwood’s wife, as crazy as de madassed white man himself.
Sabine cycled past them all, head up, turning right into the police station in a wide fast arc, knowing it would be hit-and-miss when it came to stopping, and she crashed straight into the station’s front steps. The bike clattered to the ground, Sabine leaping from it like a cowgirl from a horse. She walked into the station carrying the brown-paper bag.
Bobby Comacho loitered at the front desk, liming with the officer on duty. His back was to Sabine: a tall solid black man, obviously the man in charge from his uniform, the peaked cap.
‘You!’ Sabine bellowed.
Superintendent Bobby Comacho wheeled round.
‘I take it from that stupid hat you’re the oaf in charge.’
Bobby’s face fell, his eyes went dark, murderous.
‘Don’t you look at me like that, you evil pig,’ she spat. She held up four fingers. ‘Four, do you hear? Four of your disgusting thugs beat up my maid’s son! Put him in hospital. Did you know about that?’
‘Lady, you watch yerself. Yuh foolish husband already come here. I ent know what you talkin’ about,’ Bobby warned.
‘Oh no? You know all right and you don’t care because you’ve done it yourself. Haven’t you? Isn’t that how you got your captain’s hat? Bullied your way up the force, you fat bastard.’
Bobby glared.
The officer in charge gasped.
Sabine frothed, her small white teeth flashing.
‘Lady, get de hell outta here,’ Bobby growled.
‘I will not.’
‘I’ll have you trone in a cell.’
‘One of your stupid illiterate policemen has now threatened Talbot with his life. One of your men, a man on your force. What’s his name? Tell me. I want to speak to him. Last night he threatened to kill Talbot and now, guess what?’ Sabine broke. She was relaxed. It was like singing or swimming or crying, a relief to be there. From the brown-paper bag she brought out the gun and held it high, level to Bobby’s enormous chest. She smiled and tightened her grip on the gun.
Bobby stared.
The officer in charge quivered.
‘Nobody move,’ Sabine ordered.
She held the gun firm, her arm straight. Her frame heaved gently, like an ocean swell, as her breath slowed. Bobby shook his head slightly. Sabine smiled and nodded ever so slightly. She squeezed and the trigger gave and she heard a sharp deafening sound as she fired not one, but two, and then three bullets. The three bullets sank without a sound into the body of Superintendent Bobby Comacho, responsible for the safety of the citizens of Winderflet. His body sank lifeless to the floor. The officer in charge gawped. Sabine turned and walked away, out into the station forecourt, into the blazing sun, the light dazzling her for a few moments so she wasn’t sure exactly where she was. She raised her hand and shaded her face and looked upwards to see that, up above the church, above it all, in the blue serene sky, the blimp was gazing down at her, gazing precisely down.
TRINIDAD, 1956
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ARRIVAL
The sky that day was unusual. A vast expanse of white puckered cloud which had spread low, very low, over the Gulf of Paria. Here and there, a vein of greyish-blue cracked through, but that was all. This white blanket reflected the sea’s brutal glare back down onto itself so that you felt trapped under it. But then, further off, to the east, the cloud formation had changed, whipping itself into towering sculptures.
‘Like huge galleons,’ someone said, pointing.
‘An armada in the sky, moored from the sea,’ said another passenger.
‘Cloud galleons.’
‘Sailing ships.’
That day a curious fleet welcomed us, a spectral armada hovering over the mouth of Port of Spain’s harbour. It was mid-morning when the banana boat, the Cavina, slipped through the First Boca, the narrow strait between the north-west tip of Trinidad and Monus Island. Trinidad surrounded us, hilly and bushy, boisterously green. This greenery marched straight down the steep hills to the sea. No beach or strip of land in between, just this wild green and then the black sea. When the ship passed closer to the land, I noticed hundreds and hundreds of tall pale trees flourishing up from the rocks. Liana vines dangled from their skinny branches. Some, I know now, were the poisonous sea-salt-loving manchineel; their acid fruit is lethal, corrodes the gullet if eaten. Don’t stand under a manchineel tree in a rain shower ‒ the fruit fumes mix with water and can melt the skin. I noticed sea-almond trees, too; also tall and rather ragged cacti, hog-plum trees, naked-Indian, all manner of deciduous trees, some with spiked trunks, others with thick, tongue-like leaves; a miracle jungle sprouted up from those dark arid rocks.
Black scavenger birds floated high overhead. Corbeaux. Fifty or sixty spiralled and swung against the thick white cloud. We sailed past a single blasted tree, one limb left on it, bent in a curve and withered. Some of those big black birds sat hunched along it, watchful. Their red-rimmed eyes were speculative, watching me.
‘That must be Gaspar Grande,’ George said, peering forward. George had done his homework, all right. Before our voyage, he’d purchased maps and shipping charts from Stanford’s in Covent Garden. His suitcase bulged. Books on birds and butterflies, mammals, reptiles and insects of the Antilles, marine life, geology. Architecture, cricket. Rum distilling, cocoa planting. George knew what he was arriving to, oh yes. La belle. Beauteous Trinidad, a country already encrusted with charms. Bejewelled Trinidad ‒ oh, George’s lust fantasies had commenced long before he even met the island.
‘Savannah grassland,’ he had murmured in his sleep.
‘What, my love?’
‘Rainforest and mangrove . . .’
‘George . . . what are you talking about?’
‘Four hundred and fifty-three birds. One hundred and eight mammals.’
‘Yes, my love.’ I stifled my amusement.
‘Manatee. Golden tegu lizards. Purple honeycreepers.’
My husband was already lovesick, already caught up with the idea of what lay awaiting him. George knew what he’d chosen, what he was coming to.
We passed Carrera next, once a prison island just like Alcatraz, a lonely rock harbouring a few di
lapidated barracks, a long narrow chute down one side to the sea. Then a flotilla of tiny islands appeared port side, five in all; this was Five Islands, also covered in the same bushy greenery. Above these tiny rocks, more corbeaux tumbled out of the white sky.
‘They’ve been staring at me,’ I said to George. ‘I swear they have. Wanting to peck at me. I must look plump and juicy.’
‘You’re very juicy indeed.’ George laughed, putting his arms around me. ‘Don’t you worry, my love, I’ll take care of you, you’ll see. You’ll have servants and a big house and you’ll eat ripe pawpaw and guava for breakfast, dropped from the trees in our garden. Here, you’ll be a queen.’
George had brought me to Trinidad, all the way across the Atlantic Sea. He’d talked me into it, into him accepting a nondescript clerk job in a faraway country I’d thought was India, at first. The shipping company, Forbes-Mason, had offered George a job he felt he was unable to refuse. One evening he brought home a map of the world and unfurled it on the kitchen table, pointing. ‘See?’
I stared at the continent named INDIA on the map.
‘No, not there, silly. Here.’ He pointed to a speck, miles away and to the west.
‘There?’ Trinidad turned out to be part of a chain of islands, the Antilles, a long and curved archipelago, set into the Caribbean Sea.
‘Yes. There.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
A long brown shed with a rust-red galvanized roof squatted on one of the Five Islands. Indentured labour arriving from Calcutta had once been quarantined here: thousands of souls had sweltered in the heat for days with little water and food, awaiting entry to work the cane fields, for the ex-slaves had said, Enough is enough. Thousands had huddled in those sheds in the hostile heat but George didn’t mention this to me. The boat slipped along. By then, all the passengers had congregated out on deck, only about a hundred and twenty people: teachers and bankers and businessmen and others, like us, with three-year contracts newly signed. Even Miss Jamaica was on board, a frizzy-haired white girl newly wed to a Trinidadian French Creole. The Cavina bore the last boatload. That’s who we were: the last colonials ever to arrive in Trinidad, before things changed for good. It was 3 January 1956. We didn’t know about the young Eric Williams, that he was about to launch a new political party to thousands in Woodford Square. We arrived just as this small country had found a charismatic new leader, as it was gathering its collective will, just as Trinidad was bellowing, Go back, get out, colonial massa. We arrived in the same month Eric Williams launched his campaign. But not even George knew that yet.
The Cavina shifted out into a long channel marked with buoys. George became excited, his eyes glittering, his nose twitching with the sea smells. Port of Spain harbour glimmered into view. The hills of the northern range encircled the harbour, immense, draped in cloud-shadow and what looked like blue-green velvet ‒ these mountains once part of the mighty Andes chain. George gasped in open admiration. Bitch, muse, hypocrite, friend ‒ I knew not what to call Trinidad.
To the right, I noticed a long bank of low-lying darker green vegetation which ran right up to the wharf.
‘Caroni Swamp,’ George said.
A swamp? I was taken aback. Caroni Swamp lay along the entire port side of the entrance to the harbour, trailing off into the distance. But how wide was it, I wanted to know. And did it spread across the island’s interior? Was Trinidad mostly a deep muddy bog? And what lived inside such an unwelcoming environment? Anacondas, alligators?
Of the hills surrounding Port of Spain, one stood out. Only one hill appeared to be inhabited, busy with red roofs and glinting flashes of silver. Laventille Hill. The community looked intriguing from the ship, the only sign of civilisation because the city itself lay flat behind the harbour, invisible from the ship’s deck. I imagined this was where we might settle. Imagine! Quelle idée. Laventille: the city’s slum, where the slaves congregated after emancipation. It was windy up there, and indeed it was named accordingly: La Ventilla. The ground there was spongy, the air infused with the foul scents of the swamp.
A lighthouse stood on the wharf ‒ at last something familiar. Small, toy-like, more a decoration than anything else. Broad daylight. Yet the lighthouse was like a magnet to the boat and we sailed straight towards it. By then everyone was enthralled and we clung to the starboard rails of the ship. Some pointed.
‘How big is the city?’
‘How many people live in it?’
‘A few thousand, a few hundred?’
‘I hear it’s very poor.’
‘No, it’s rich.’
‘It’s dirty.’
‘I hear you have to watch your step.’
‘You can’t walk around at night.’
‘Rubbish, it’s ruled and built by the British. It’s well-ordered.’
‘It’s like Bombay.’
‘It’s like Jamaica.’
Laughter.
I crossed myself. Protégez-nous, I whispered. My stomach was twisted up into knots. I imagined this was the case for all of us. Nothing spoke to us. Only George seemed unperturbed. The sea fell more silent and a blanket of white cloud pinned us down. A brown dried-up coconut floated past. Grizzled pelicans perched on the marker buoys, regarding our entrance with indifference. The stink of the swamp reached us, a strong salt odour mingled with the scents of dead fish, dead dogs, decaying mangrove. Its own smell. We put our hands to our noses and laughed off our unease. George’s eyes gleamed. But I stared uncertainly at the small famous port, those encroaching hills; the hairs on the back of my neck stood erect. Sixteen days at sea. We’d arrived to this: Port of Spain. So quiet and self-contained and green.
Eventually, the white cloud-blanket evaporated. A second, even more hazardous sky revealed itself, overearnest, a blazing staring blue. The sun hurled lancing rays at us and I felt I had to get out of the way. The Cavina manoeuvred closer to the dock. I crept downstairs to our cabin, getting down on my knees. I prayed to the Virgin:
Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce,
Protégez-nous,
Nous sommes seuls ici,
Nous avons besoin de votre aide.
Gardez-nous.
I was frightened, all of a sudden unsure of myself. What if I refused to get off the boat, refused outright to descend to the dock? What if I changed my mind? I could, couldn’t I? Explain to George I’d had a change of heart. The ship would fill with its outbound cargo of bananas and head back to Southampton. We could stay on board. What if I failed the test of Trinidad? The heat had chased me down into the cabin, invading the small space. My skin was slippery-damp. Water in my hairline, a rivulet of water trickling down the nape of my neck. Lightly, I pressed my fingers to my forehead, then my cheeks, inspecting my glistening fingertips. I pressed the palm of one hand to my chest and wiped away more perspiration. I practised breathing: in, out, in, out. I peered into the dresser mirror and saw another woman, her face steamed and plump.
I sat still on the small bunk bed, eyes closed. Italy, France: already this was very different. Hot countries I knew, European countries. But this heat was indecent, like breath or fingers. Hands on me, touching me.
‘Get away from me,’ I rasped.
I returned to the deck to find our ship pulling alongside the Queen’s Wharf. I could see black people milling around and custom houses and cranes and other ships docked. A halo of pale yellow dust hovered in the air. Voices shouting. The sky shouted. Butterflies swarmed in my stomach. I clutched George’s hand tightly. George’s face was smooth and pale and calm. He showed no outward signs of distress from the heat or anything else.
We had arrived. Travelled all the way from Harrow on the Hill, from our new home, a wedding present from George’s parents, from mid-winter, frost still on the ground, from family and friends. I couldn’t believe it. We brought very little with us. Two suitcases with some summer clothes, a crate of favourite bits and pieces, which we had labelled FRAGILE, and, of course, my green Raleigh bicycle.
‘Are you all right, my love?’ George asked.
‘Mmmm . . .’
‘Darling, you’ve lost the ability to speak.’
He was right: I couldn’t find the breath to form words. A stout red-faced Englishman came forward from the crowd to greet us, sweat trickling in straight lines down his temples. He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.
‘George and Sabine Harwood.’ George grinned, stepping towards him, ushering me in the man’s direction. We all shook hands briefly. A car was waiting near by, a Chevrolet. Perspiration had collected in my eyelashes and my sight was blurred. I was close to fainting. And the smells! Heat and fruit and the strong ripe musk of Negroes. Black people everywhere. I tried not to stare. I’d never seen so many of them before. They were strangely quiet and distanced, as if they only existed in the background.
A commotion started up near the hold. Directions were shouted, people beckoned others loudly, calling those on the dock to come forward to retrieve their crates. My green bicycle appeared. Two men wheeled it down the ramp, laughing and making a fuss over it, as if it were some novelty toy. A steward pointed in my direction.
‘Lady, lady,’ they called. ‘Bring it fuh she. White English lady.’
I blushed, thanking them profusely.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle Page 16